


Magnets

by summoninglupine



Category: KOllOK 1991 (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Gen Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22000999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summoninglupine/pseuds/summoninglupine
Summary: The Kollok Winery Banquet Hall, 1943; Embeth Pegg struggles to reconcile herself to the idea of rescue and to her feelings of loss. Set during episode 41, Begin Again.
Kudos: 10





	Magnets

A moment passed, three years. She had rehearsed the scene so many times in her head, had played out their reunion over and over again, and never once had it been like this; when she stopped waiting, there they were, Mallory and Henry, towels over their arms like children playing dress up. Three years, she thought again, how much can change over three years.

She took a deep breath. Everything’s fine, she told herself, everything’s fine. Everything was _not_ fine. 

A sudden panic seized her. For so long, she had waited for the others, for so long, she had been desperate to go home, and now, when she had given up hope, now when she had made a life for herself, here they were, acting as if nothing had happened. Well, for them, it hadn’t, she supposed; they had not waited for three long years, had not been forced to accept the loneliness, the emptiness, had not cried themselves to sleep, had not reconciled themselves to the loss of everything. She did not know if she was angry or sad anymore, and standing there, in the back room of the Kollok Winery Banquet Hall, confronted by her friends, now three years younger than she was, Embeth Pegg did not know how she ought to feel.

Sharply, she recalled Ven, recalled her touch, her whispers in the long years when she thought the world would never go back to normal, and she felt an abrupt and sudden irrational anger and was uncertain at who to direct it at—at Ven for making her feel something when she would have to give it up, or at the others, her friends, for not coming back, and then, abruptly, for coming back at the wrong time.

She looked from Mallory to Henry and felt a genuine anger, a real and undeniable anger. They were so smug, so proud of themselves, thought themselves so clever, standing there with their towels, playing silver service dress up, and, Jesus Christ, in that moment, she wanted to just hit them both in their stupid faces.

Another deep breath. They went to rescue Mickey, she realised, as both Mallory and Henry started talking at once; they went back for Mickey without pause, but they had left her, they had left her for so long, and she felt a sense of burning resentment at that, of jealousy, and she realised that she did not want to see Mickey again, that she was upset with her for being rescued before she was, as if somehow she was more important than she was. What was it about Mickey Jones that made her so much more important than she was?

She tried to remember a time before this, a time when things weren’t so confused, weren’t so messed up. What had it been like, Embeth Pegg asked herself, to be normal; what had it been like before she came here, before her family even moved to Kollok? She realised that she no longer knew the answer, and, when she had been what she now thought of as normal, such was not a question she would have asked.

Magnets attract one other, she thought abruptly, but only if you arrange them correctly. Was that what this was, she thought, was that what all of time was, a series of magnets arranged by outside forces, designed to push away, to pull together. If she stopped to think of it, it would drive her mad, undo the fragile peace she had achieved these past three years. She wished suddenly that she was more like Ven, that she had that distance, that ability to remove herself from the situation, to think clearly, to think with _clarity_. She smiled thinly at that, and realised both Mallory and Henry were waiting for her to say something.

Moments passed, and still they waited, and it dawned on Embeth Pegg that she did not know what to say, did not know how to reply. 

Magnets, she thought again sadly, some to attract, some to repel.


End file.
